By George P. Hassett
A woman suspected of stabbing three Somerville police officers before being shot and killed Friday morning on Sycamore Terrace was released from psychiatric care shortly before the attack, according to sources inside the Somerville police department.
Two of the officers stabbed – Jose Ramirez and Dante DiFronzo, according to sources – were honored with life saving medals in December. A third officer, Mark DiFava, was also stabbed in the attck, sources said.
All three officers were treated for non-life threatening wounds and released from an area hospital.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was known in her Winter Hill neighborhood for loud late night fights with her boyfriend, neighbors said.
“Her and her boyfriend used to drink and get crazy,” said neighbor Joshua Ramotar. “But whenever they spoke to me, they seemed like nice people. There had been trouble with them before but never anything like this.”
Another neighbor said she saw the officers staggering away from the home on Sycamore Terrace and bleeding at 6:30 a.m. The neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said she saw the woman leave the area in a police car earlier in the night and then return in a taxi.
The neighbor said the woman had been at the center of an incident about six months earlier in which she climbed on to her roof and threatened to jump.
A police source said officers responding to a domestic situation shot the woman after she stabbed them with a broken bottle.
The neighbor who declined to give her name said the deadly incident did not make her feel unsafe in the area, a quiet stretch of homes off Broadway. “This was an isolated, crazy person who had caused trouble before.”
This incident is under investigation by Somerville police and the Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office. There are no additional suspects being sought at this point in the investigation, police said.
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